Is it normal to spend 90% of my time waiting?

[Userbla]

So I've been trying to enjoy this game, but I find myself spending most of my time waiting for more money, unable to do much else. When more money does come in, it's hardly enough to develop the prison at all. This gets boring very quickly as I spend most of my time staring at the clock.

I try to complete the grants and make my prison as efficient as possible (in terms of reducing costs), but the income per day and economy in this game seem to need a lot of work. This surprises me because we're on alpha 13 now and it was the same back in alpha 1 which I gave up on very quickly.

Am I just bad at this game? Does anybody else experience this? How can I keep things interesting?

[aziznouh]

My experience is similar regarding to the money part
It is tough in the beginning, especially if you are on "continuous intake" like me
BUT, you aren't just waiting most of the times
For me, I micro manage a few things here and there, or try to avoid riots and messing up thing and the usual game challenges
If it is tough for you, build a small prison first

[RMJ1984]

Yeah, the game time money isnt balanced, im kinda hoping it might be addressed in a patch soon.

Like time goes to fast, if you only have say one hour in the shower, they spend much of that hour just walking to the shower. so something needs to be done.

Money only come every day at midnight.

I think there needs to be like instead of grants. you maybe take loans and can loan money.

But its just hard to say, the balance of gametime and money feels off somehow, compared to say Theme Hospital and Theme park games. Because your right you sit around to much of the time doing nothing because of no money.

Not to mention there is literally nothing to do and nothing happens at night.

I hope some of the upcoming patches will tweak to make the game more engaging and not so passive "the waiting game".

Could we add something to the game where you earn money more often?. Lets say you earn money each time a prisoner is release. if they have be properly resocialized "when that gets added to the game" you earn more.

Could there come some form of goverment supervision that inspects your prison every now and again and you could earn some bonus and or penalty.

What if when prisoners escape you could allocate money in another screen, like evil genuis had the world domination heist screen, you could use money to get police to search and arrest prisoners who has escaped, bringing them back will earn you bonus.

Im theme hospital you obvious earn money each time a patient is cured. We need something like this, so its not money so few and far between.

maybe the minimal prisoners would go out and work everyday and only be at the prisoner some of the day and bring you some money back, also has the risk reward of getting more contraband in your prison.

Something you could also have, is like if you could buy used walls, yes you can actually in real life buy used bricks. used furnature and stuff, sure it will be crappy higher risk of failing but cheaper. But again money income and price of all items still isnt balanced at all, so i guess that is the more obvious solution to try and take a look at that.

I just think that when prisoners have been working in the workshop and there is no more work listen in that day, it would be nice to see your workers yellow guys start to life out the plates to a place like delivery but in reverse where stuff gets taken, so that they lift it would trucks come and get licence plates and you get the money asap. instead of having to wait until 00:00

Or maybe just give spread the total amount of money out so instead of every 24 hours ingame, we get it every hour or something .

[Xoligy]

Ugh, really another one of these threads?

The game is alpha there is practically no balancing in the game as that's more beta stages. You can be making around 20k a week in the first two weeks if i remember the game economy right (i play a mod that makes the game harder which means even more waiting but, hey i dont mind its a good game.) Have you thought about trying one the grants mods if your so strapped for cash? Think thy give something like a million in cash with all the grants that have been added with there very generous amounts.

[_alphaBeta_]

The game does need a balance in general, especially the economy. For now you can try some of the mods or simply gift yourself some money by editing the save game (pretend it's a grant). It is possible to establish a good cash flow early, but it requires getting a workshop up and running before you run low on funds.

While this thread was hijacked several times over, I'll quote myself from it rather than saying it over again. My opinion hasn't changed, and I'd like to see some customization and micromanagement options, that don't involve spending, to come online. Not everyone likes micromanagement, but I think it has a place in simulators, especially if use of these features is optional.

...I think simulations can go two ways on this. Either you're constantly given enough money to keep buying and expanding at a reasonable pace OR the game should provide some other means of entertainment (that doesn't involve spending) to amuse the player while they wait for money to come in. In the case of PA, that could include regime changes, deployments, future planning, policies etc. We have some of this now, but it probably could be expanded further if the goal is not to have money come too easily (which isn't much fun either, but if it is for you, you can always cheat). Striking that balance is difficult. I think the big problem for some now is there isn't a whole lot you can do right now that doesn't involve spending. The opening grants are also a step in the right direction, and fairly realistic as local governments would want you to expand and would provide the funds to do so. Grant payments before and after project completion (such as the infirmary one presently) are a real nice touch. I assume this will be expanded once out of ALPHA.

Luckily, as was said, we have the ability to adjust our funds via the save game file. I've been adding a bit everytime I come back to my prison to simulate grants that aren't in the game yet.

[PeterF]

Not to mention there is literally nothing to do and nothing happens at night.

Night time is when you build stuff, because during the day all of your workers are busy unloading sheet metal and moving it to the workshop, or your inamtes are in the way.

It's also a good time for a shakedown.